I know Gnome is the default on popular distros: Fedora, Ubuntu, Rhel, Pop OS (it’s Cosmic Desktop yes but it is still based on Gnome)…etc. But Gnome just doesnt work for me. I would pick XFCE - stable and no BS.
Before Manjaro and their cetificate shenanigan, I used to use their XFCE version. At the time, it was marketed as the “Flagship Manjaro version”. I went 4 years without any problems and I did tinker a lot, just couldnt get their XFCE to break.
After a tough Arch or Gentoo installs, I just want to put XFCE on and call it a day.
What about you guys?
I’m a long time supporter of Xfce, but I have to say Cinnamon these days. It’s light on resources while being feature rich. Also it’s the default on Mint and it just works.
I’d say Gnome, since I’m so used to it that I feel it doesn’t get in the way of the things I’m doing.
Because that would be my aim: something that doesn’t interfere with the work I am doing.KDE Plasma.
It has been great for gaming, adopting Wayland protocols at a faster rate than other DEs due in part thanks to Valve’s contributions.
I freaking love GNOME & Adwaita, but I’ll switch back when I deem it better than Plasma.
That’s not too hard a question for me, I’ve been using the same DE for years: KDE
KDE is one of the main reasons for me to use Linux. I immensely like the performance, silence and battery lifetime of MacBooks. But if I have to work with anything but KDE, it’s not worth it for me. The only thing OSX does better than basically any other desktop out there, is the ability to drag whole virtual screen between monitors.
GNOME because it works out of the box like GNOME
any computer I need to be stable enough for work/school: KDE
any computer whose primary purpose is for goofing off and gaming: LXQt (and I will spend the entire time configuring LXQt instead of gaming…)
Why not use steam or arch if it’s just fucking around? Arch you can at least configure easily.
Desktop environment? Who needs a desktop environment?
Bro watches videos through ASCII conversion in the cli😭
TBH, I’ve always wanted to do this.
Bro doesn’t need DE to watch videos. Bro doesn’t need DE to do anything.
mpvfor the winbut if you really want your ASCII conversion:
mpv --vo=cacaormpv --vo=tctIt’s actually possible! Thats amazing lol
I’d rather not use a computer at all than use GNOME for the rest of my live.
For me it’s KDE Plasma all the way.It’s wild to me how GNOME evokes such strong opinions in folks. It really is a love it or hate it kind of deal (I’m in the “love it” camp).
I wonder why that is. I like KDE ok, but it doesn’t elicit a strong emotion from me. KDE works fine, I just really like GNOME.
There must be something about GNOME in particular that some people love, and others hate.
For those of us that expect room to breathe and make our machine work for us rather than the other way around, we feel like Gnome takes a lot of liberties away for the sake of “simplicity.” There is so much missing from Gnome that is present in most other DEs and even custom WM setups.
The primary contributors who work under The Gnome Foundation also come off as controlling and arrogant in a lot of cases, and refuse to take community feedback to heart, whereas KDE has literal summits to get user feedback on major core features we want to see which then later get added to their backlogs and sprints as Epics. Gnome acts a lot like Apple in the sense that they’re very much “we know what’s best for you better than you do.”
Now, the singular area I can give Gnome true props in is their accessibility functionality, but that’s primarily it. KDE’s accessibility is fairly behind by about a decade in comparison.
That’s just my take, take it as you will.
can you exemplify a few of the things you miss?
I miss old Gnome. I wish they’d stuck with the old Gnome 2 design philosophy but breathed new modern design principals into it, instead of trying to go the Ubuntu Unity route.
Use Mate. It is based on the old Gnome 2
I was waiting for someone to say that.
I like that Mate is a thing, but like I said, I’m looking for something thats based on it but as if its had the same 20 years of enhancements everything else got.
The closest thing to that I’ve found is quite literally KDE. So I use KDE.
There must be something about GNOME in particular that some people love, and others hate.
GNOME is heavily opinionated.
As such it gets praise from people that share that opinion and gets hate from the people that do not. Many other DEs are much more configurable, giving a broader audience the possibility to adjust everything to their liking.
Honestly, that defaulting to the Search field in the Save dialog when I’m trying to save something just gets me wild. It beggars the imagination why the developers think that’s a reasonable thing to do and it colors my whole perception of the DE.
This and shortcut for creating a subfolder doeesnt work in save dialogue.
I haven’t lasted long enough after the Search piss-off to notice the tomfoolery of that. Well, you probably shouldn’t be creating new folders from there, don’t you understand how the workflow-as-handed-down-by-Jehosaphat is supposed to be used?
GNOME is a lightly upgraded MacOS interface. Every time I’ve had to use a Mac has pissed me off so GNOME gives me war flashbacks.
Not necessarily the DE’s fault but ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Ok.
But, in Mac OS, Windows, and Linux, all three of which I work in regularly, I open up a terminal and type stuff in it, open up applications in windows and work in them, and copy and paste between them.
Really, any DE can handle this stuff. Not sure what all the fuss is about otherwise. But it’s all good.
You know how the ending of LOST or Game of Thrones can bring up feelings in people? That’s how it was for me when Gnome 3 first came out. I had been using Gnome 2 for a few years and had a good workflow, and then suddenly, everything changed. Back then Gnome 3 was buggy and lacked a lot of things, which didn’t help. It also didn’t help that the devs took a “the problem is you” stance to all feedback. That said, I use Gnome now, and I like it, it took some years to mature and become good. But the feeling is still there sometimes.
why do you think gnome is the default on everything?
Because distros have a sick sense of humour.
And there was me thinking because it’s really good?
It’s not though.
The most popular DE is no good
ya totally
The most popular de is no good
Baffling
Much like Windows.
Except people are forced to use windows. Not so with gnome
KDE, always
Used it since I switched to the Linux Desktop 25 years ago. Quickly tried gnome, and others, and hated it.
KDE is fast, efficient, looks awesome, is ready to work with, and highly customizable
KDE
True people only use i3 or the-other-i3-for-wayland
/s, of course. But still my personal choice
KDE plasma. Coming from 30 years of running exclusively windows it’s just the most comfortable and easy for me to use (way more than Gnome). Easily configurable, works. Can’t ask for more.
i3
best tiling on XCinnamon for 2 reasons
-
KDE is missing a lot of features which still only works in Gnome. Like the taskbar Calendar app syncing events with services like Google Calendar
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cinnamon is extremely stable and doesn’t move your icons around when you connect to an external display with your laptop and the display has a different resolution.
-
Sway for a laptop, Plasma for desktop.
Had you have asked me a few weeks ago, I probably would have said Sway for both,.or maybe Gnome for the desktop… But I decided to check out KDE again for the first time in like 20 years, and while it’s still kind of a hot mess it has come a long way.
